Home Economics (Para)
Para Summary Maia comes in late in Home Economics and gets paired up with Niall (as Nick Hewitt). They have to make a three course meal. It all starts with the main dish featuring some asparagus. Para Maia walked into the classroom, her home economics text book in hand. “Sorry I’m late Mrs Brooks.” She walked over and dumped her books on a desk and sat in a seat as the teacher tutted at her nonchalant behaviour. Maia grinned. “Today you will all be working with a partner, and planning and creating a three course meal using the skills we’ve covered over the past weeks.” Maia actually bothered to pay attention to her teacher; home economics was class she actually liked. It wasn’t as if she wanted to become a cook or a chef or something but at least it wasn’t boring and repetitive like maths. Here, she could get up and do something, it wasn’t all just sitting around and writing on papers. “This lesson we will be focusing on the main course. You will get 10 minutes to quickly plan the meal and then the rest the lesson to make and cook it. You can use the recipes in your text book for inspiration but I will also draw an ingredient out of a hat that you must include in your dish. I have already previously drawn your partners out of a hat and they are final.” Maia noticed Mrs. Brooks give emphasis on the word final. She then proceeded to read out the pairs as Maia aimlessly flicked through the book in front of her. “Maia and…..Nick.” Maia’s head shot up. “And your ingredient will be…..asparagus.” Maia eyebrows went up in curiosity, wondering how Mrs. Brooks could have possibly come up with asparagus as she shuffled over to sit next to the blonde haired guy - oh well it was also half brown to be fair. Maia mumbled to Nick, ”Anyone would think she’d be trying to create another edition of MasterChef, ey?” When the blonde heard the door of the classroom open, his head shot right to looking at who the person could be. Seeing that it was Maia, he nodded slightly and thought to himself: Ah, typical. It wasn’t as if he expected Maia to come late to class, he’d just gotten used to her not coming in early and going in before anything exciting happens. He was actually jealous that she could get away with doing it. After a few seconds, his attention went back to the teacher as she started talking about their activity for the day. As the teacher drew out the partners and ingredients, his eyes grew wider. He’d be partnering up with Maia and they have to cook a three-course meal, the main course for this day. He sat up straight and looked to his left, where Maia was sitting, and gave her a shy smile. The lad chuckled softly at the girl’s comment and whispered back to her. “If she’s lucky. Most of the class here barely knows how to work a microwave, I doubt they’d be able to cook something up. It baffles me why they took home ec anyway,” he chuckled, hoping the teacher wouldn’t see him. Too bad she did. “Mister Hewitt, what seems to be funny back there?” Maia felt a smirk grow on her features when the teacher disapprovingly commented on Nick’s laughter. Maia answered the teachers probably rhetorical question, ”No need to be annoyed Mrs. Brooks, we’re only commenting on the absurdity of cooking with asparagus.” The teacher’s mouth formed a tight knit line as she probably contemplated whether to tell Maia off or not. “Fair’s fair, Maia, it was drawn out of a hat,” she shot her a condescending look before turning away and enlisted the class with another set of instructions. Maia knew it wasn’t the best thing to do; to stir the teachers’ up. But she quite frankly enjoyed seeing them throw her annoyed looks. And what was school without a little bit of student-teacher banter? Maia shuffled over to the cupboard to grab one of the painstakingly horrible-looking aprons before putting it on and sauntering into the kitchens. They’d had to wear those green aprons ever since their first year and Maia thought she was the only one that despised them. The colour was revolting and why would it matter that much if they got a bit of sugar and spice on their clothes? Maia eyed the front table, which was piled with numerous ingredients. She wouldn’t mind just sitting there and devouring each and every one of them just on its own - with maybe the exception of the flour. Maia walked by and picked up an apple and swiftly took a bite from it. She felt the teacher’s eyes on her and turned around before popping the apple in the bin to Mrs. Brooks’ surprised satisfaction. Maia went and sat out a counter and muttered to Niall with a smile, “I can’t help but be a bit hungry can I? Oh and don’t worry I think I’m done with the messing-with-the-teacher stuff for now.” As soon as the boy heard the teacher’s remark about him laughing, he immediately regretted what he did and he tried to hide his face with one of his hands. He heard Maia talking back to the teacher and he looked at her with a disapproving look. “What do you think you’re doing? I don’t want to get in trouble, Maia,” he whispered to the girl as the teacher turned around to continue drawing names and ingredients out of the hat. “Now that you’ve been assigned to a partner and an ingredient, I want all of you to grab an apron on that cupboard and come follow me to the kitchen,” the teacher said as she pointed to the direction of the cupboard. The lad released a sigh as he stood up from his chair and walk over to the cupboard to grab one of the aprons. As he looked at the apron he had grabbed, it was probably the worst one there. He turned around to see if there was any other apron left, but unfortunately, the cupboard was already empty. Not having any other choice, he just wore the apron and tied the strings behind his back. He walked over to the tabletop Maia had chosen. When he got to the table, he saw her taking a bite from an apple that was supposed to be used for their assignment. Another look of disapproval came from the lad to the lass. “You are literally the epitome of trouble, you should know that,” he said, pulling a chair back for him to sit down on. Hearing her say that she was done with messing with the teacher for now released some tension in his body. Turning around to face her, he nodded politely. “Good,” he said before he turned back to Mrs. Brooks for her final instructions. As soon as she had said her last word, the blonde stood up immediately and looked over the ingredients laid in front of them. “So, how do you want to start this?” Maia let an exasperated breath of air. “Uh….” She trailed, completely unsure of where they should start. “We could start with the asparagus….?” She smiled sheepishly, shrugging. She picked up one of the green vegetable spears and put it on the counter in front of them. She decided then, looking at the asparagus, that she was either going to pick the asparagus out of the meal or just chuck her whole portion away after it was cooked. She loved her food but this was asparagus they were talking about. Ok just stop thinking about the asparagus already and think of ideas,she scolded herself. The teacher called out from the front saying that our ten minutes to plan our dish had began. “Remember to clean up as you go. You’ll be washing all the dishes you use after so keep that in mind.” She added. Maia racked her brain for ideas. “We could put it on some pizza with some other fancy ingredients? Make it gourmet?” She fired off some more ideas along the lines of quiches, asparagus-filled pasta and salads. “What do you think?” Maia asked Nick. After he had asked Maia on how they should start the meal, he couldn’t take his eyes off of the asparagus. He was eyeing it intently like it was going to do something a few seconds from now. When Maia took it and placed it directly in front of the two of them, he was torn out of his reverie. Shaking his head to get back to her, he nodded for nothing. “Yeah, yeah, I guess we could start with the asparagus,” he said, his hand going through his hair. Opening a drawer, he grabbed a knife and some other utensils for them to use. He placed them on the counter and grabbed more of the asparagus and placed it in front of the two of them. “Asparagus in pizza? Does that already exist? If it doesn’t, we could make it into something huge. You know, only if it tastes good,” he chuckled, grabbing the knife, starting to figure out what to do with the asparagus. “I think we could put it in pasta. That’s the safest way to go if we’re avoiding having to actually taste that there’s asparagus in what we’re eating,” he said as he started chopping the asparagus. Continuing to chop the asparagus, he kept thinking of ideas to do. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. “What kind of pasta, then? Lasagna, spaghetti, fettuccine, what else?” Maia watched Nick cut the asparagus this way and that as the cutting knife glimmered n the sunlight shining through the window. Maia’s mind flashed to the horror movie she had regrettedly watched last week. It had knifes in it. She shuddered at the memory. Maia wasn’t good with scary movies. She didn’t mind re-enacting them to unsuspecting people but watching them herself? That was a whole other story. “I need to stop watching those goddamn horror movies.” She muttered to herself under her breath. She then remembered Nicks question and replied with the first thing that came to her mind, “Fettuccine sounds good to me. That’s like the flat spaghetti right? If it is that seems easiest. We make the pasta, mash some asparagus up and mix it together.” Maia looked around to see how all the other people were going. She saw a couple pairs had already started prep while others were still planning and picking out their ingredients like them. Maia placed her and Nick at the ‘doing well’ stage. Maia grabbed a knife and another asparagus spear, and began replicating Nick’s chopped-up one. “We could cook it in some special pasta sauce thing as well? It would take away most of the taste of the asparagus which would be a plus.” She suggested. He heard Maia say something under her breath, he stopped chopping up the asparagus and turned to face her. “What?” he asked, thinking that what she had just said had nothing to do with the task at hand or anything remote to what they have talked about. “Horror movies?” he asked again, quirking a brow as a sign of his confusion. Shaking his head, he returned to chopping the asparagus until he thought they had enough to use. He nodded as he grabbed a bowl from the bottom cabinet of their table. “Yeah, that’s it. I think so too,” he said, thinking of the next thing he had to do. “Oh right,” he told himself. He walked over to one of the other cabinets in the room and grabbed a pot. After filling it with water, he walked back to the stove and started boiling the pot of water. Looking back over to Maia, he saw her chopping the asparagus again. “I think the asparagus are done. Yeah, we should put it in some special sauce,” he said before he covered up the pot. Thinking up of what sauce they could make, he gave Maia some instructions. “Grab a pan and start melting up some butter on some cream,” he said, pointing over to where those were. Notes *''Italics are Nick's'' *Normal text are Maia's Category:Prompt Para Category:Para Category:Nick Para Category:Maia Para Category:Ongoing Para